Zalgiris Kaunas signs Janis Strelnieks

Zalgiris Kaunas landed a veteran floor general still in the prime of his career by signing guard Janis Strelnieks for the upcoming season.

Strelnieks, standing at 191 cm tall, arrives from CSKA Moscow, where he played the previous two seasons. He helped CSKA reach the last Final Four with 4.4 points and 1.6 assists per game in a reserve role of 14 minutes on average.

Before that, the 31-year-old played two EuroLeague seasons each with Olympiacos Piraeus and Brose Bamberg after having debuted in the competition with Budivelnik Kiev in 2013-14.

Through 157 EuroLeague games over seven seasons, Strelnieks has averaged 8.1 points, 2.4 assists and 1.6 rebounds.

He also has parts of six EuroCup seasons under his belt – for Bamberg, Kiev, Spartak St Petersburg and Ventspils in his native Latvia – for slightly higher averages of 8.3 points, 3. 0 assists and 1.9 rebounds in 66 games.

Strelnieks has also been a constant figure for Latvia‘s national team, having represented the team since 2010. In the 2019 FIBA World Cup Qualifiers, the guard averaged 23.2 points and 6.8 assists.

Meanwhile, Zalgiris also has a subtraction from the roster, as Martinas Geben will be leaving Kaunas. The big man spent the last two seasons in Kaunas and decided to cut his contract with Zalgiris short, moving to Brose Bamberg on a one-year deal.

The Center averaged 8 minutes of action on the court in the EuroLeague, putting up 3.3 points, 2.1 rebounds and an efficiency of 4.5 per game.

In the Lithuanian basketball league the 26-year-old had much higher averages, as he put up 7.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 10.7 efficiency per contest.